I just finished reading the article from the link you included. What a incredibly sad situation! For the last 10-15 minutes I've been reading mashaable's FC comments trying to make sense of this situation. Looks like there have been some big time screwups leading to this very unfortunate outcome. What's you take, Don?https://www.facebook.com/mashable/posts ... 4515569705

I didn't realize that Target had that many stores in Canada. One would think they would have started out smaller and then grew once those stores became successful. I wonder why there was such a difference between USA stores and Canada stores? Seems silly to have junk and have if over priced! I think the ex-Target CEO was right with his dream of opening stores in Canada. Just not sure if it was him or someone else who executed it so very poorly.

We had a chain of stores here called Zellers. Their colour was red too. Target bought most of Zellers locations but instead of a cleaning and a quick coat of paint, Target did major restoration. 1 mall here was so extensive that they even removed most of the outside wall, moved the location of the doors and totally redid the exterior brickwork. That store just reopened 3 months ago. In my opinion, Target thought they could just walk in, open up and take over these locations. On the surface it just looked like a new Zellers.

Then there was stocking. The few times I was in a Target here, the shelves were empty. They obviously had a product supply problem. Either they couldn't get a supplier here in Canada or they were having trouble getting US products across the border.

People that had shopped at Target in the US were expecting the same stock, prices and deals they were experiencing when shopping in the US stores. Target Canada carried different products from what I understand and the prices were higher than Walmart and about the same as other department stores here in Canada like the Hudson Bay Company.

On top of all this, there is still a backlash against American companies coming north and setting up shop in Canada. Many are still upset with Walmart and saw Target as another US company trying to take over. When Walmart came to Canada, they bought and took over a chain called Woolco.

Now on top of spending too much on restoration and poor product supply, Target also had to deal with higher wages. Minimum wage here in Ontario is $11.00.

So this is just my take on Targets failure here in Canada. In the 2 years they have been open, I've been in the store at the mall where Barb works about 4 times. Disappointed each time and never bought anything from them. Ended up walking over to Walmart each time and got what I wanted for cheaper.

Here are 3 pictures Barb took in Sept 2013 (6 months after they opened) when she went shopping for baby stuff.

The US is not exempt from store closings. At Coastal Grand Mall, we noticed three store closing announcements. Kirkland's, dELIA's, and Wet Seal.

Le Gourmet Chef has closed both its Tanger locations, and both Myrtle Beach K Marts are closed.

The latest announced closing is JC Penney at Inlet Square in Murrells Inlet. It will close their doors on or around March 5. This is such a misfortune for that mall which has been struggling in recent yeas.

On the other hand, Dollar Stores are popping up on every other corner!